(En)The Unifying role of the Holy Spirit

A shortened version of a paper given at the inaugural meeting of the European Liberal Protestant Network

Bad Boll, Germany, July 1998

By David Steers

Many liberal Christian people might be wary of starting a consideration of their identity with the concept of the Holy Spirit. For some, especially in the English speaking world, the primacy of the Holy Spirit in worship is linked to the spirit-filled worship of Pentecostalism, with the excesses of 'speaking in tongues' or glossolalia, of worship based primarily on emotion and expressive outpourings. At the present moment this kind of experience finds its fulfilment in the so-called 'Toronto Blessing' - which particularly affects Anglicans and other mainstream denominations - where participants in such services throw themselves on the floor in hysterical laughter or bark like dogs or make other strange noises. For liberal Christians these kinds of phenomena hold little attraction.

Another cause of suspicion for those coming from a liberal tradition might be a reluctance to sign up to the traditional definition of the Holy Spirit, so confidently asserted, for instance, by the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church when it says that the Holy Spirit is

The Third Person of the Holy Trinity, distinct from, but consubstantial, coequal and coeternal with, the Father and the Son, and in the fullest sense God. It is held that the mode of the Spirit's procession in the Godhead is by way of 'spiritation' (not 'generation') and that this procession takes place as from a single principle (F.L.Cross and E.A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Second Edition, Oxford 1974, 660).

Some might feel that such precision of definition is itself a limitation on the work of the Holy Spirit, a traditional liberal approach has been to refuse to be bound by creeds, however well intentioned, and it was, after all, St Paul who said that "The written code kills but the Spirit gives life".

But partly because of these kinds of considerations liberal Christians are sometimes prone to overlook the importance of the Holy Spirit, and I would like to suggest that in many ways the Holy Spirit should have a central place in our witness as liberal Christians.

The Holy Spirit is clearly important in the Biblical records, especially in the Old Testament. Here the word Spirit is usually translated from the Hebrew word 'ruach' which means something like 'breath'. So at the very beginning of the story of creation in the book of Genesis we are told that The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters and when God created humanity from dust God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. For the Hebrew people the image of the Lord breathing life into the world and into his people was a powerful one, for them the Spirit was the physical life principle in humanity and also the source of all human skill and excellence.

The Spirit was also the source of divine truth in the prophets - The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to the bound (Isaiah ch.61 v.1), and the Spirit was the power making for moral holiness which was something recognised by the Psalmist. In Psalm 51 the core of the writer's plea is for the presence of God's Spirit in the heart of the penitent:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence,

and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

This Psalm is a fervent prayer for cleansing and renewal. The people turn towards God in search of his compassion because the writer believes that God in his love will create a new heart for the faithful.

Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the power of the Spirit in the Old Testament is found in the book of Ezekiel. In chapter 37 the prophet is taken to a vast battlefield which is strewn everywhere with the bones of long dead men. Commanded to prophesy in the Valley of the Dry Bones Ezekiel is asked Son of man, can these bones live? He did as he was commanded and there as he prophesied the scattered bones of the valley became skeletons, the skeletons became corpses, and the corpses became living human beings.

So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And as I looked, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.

Of course, this vision is not meant to be literally understood. It is a parable, a metaphor. It was addressed to the Jews in exile in Babylon who were feeling that they were no better than bones, that they were effectively dead, that they had no hope. Ezekiel prophesied to them that there was hope for the future, that Israel would rise up from the dead. Indeed future events showed that this was true. With the fall of Babylon to the Persians things became easier for the Jews, and many of them were able to return to Palestine and refound Jewish life in the Jewish land.

I sometimes think that this is a particularly apt passage to be considered by liberal Christians. If we are going to be honest about the fortunes of liberal Christianity in the twentieth century we would have to admit that the optimism of the nineteenth century, in which liberalism was in the vanguard, has evaporated in the light of the cataclysms of this century and it has had its effect on the strength of many liberal Christian churches. But I believe that like in Ezekiel the possibility of the Holy Spirit re-invigorating our fellowship of faith is a very real one, one that perhaps can begin with this meeting.

The key phrase in Ezekiel is Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. This is a very clear link to one of the most important passages in the New Testament concerning the Holy Spirit. The story of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 is the story of the creation of the Church, it is the story of a discouraged and fearful group of people being galvanised into a living Church when the apostles heard a sound.... from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit in a group of people - not necessarily in such a dramatic way, in fact very often as the "still small voice" - that turns that assembly into a Church that is able to play its part in the building of the Kingdom.

So the Holy Spirit is important to all churches, however they might be described or labelled. Today we are particularly thinking of the unifying role of the Holy Spirit. One of the things that the Holy Spirit did on the first Pentecost was break down the barriers between people of different backgrounds. I am sure then that the Holy Spirit calls us all to be ecumenical and anxious to promote inter-church co-operation. Indeed many of the churches and groups represented here have been pioneers in local ecumenical initiatives and continue to be involved in such activities. It is also true that as members of the IARF we are willing to go one step further and to seek to engage in dialogue and understanding with peoples of other faiths, which is one of the biggest challenges that the Christian Church faces at the present time.

But I believe also that the Holy Spirit has played and continues to play a central unifying role for the different bodies represented here. In the centuries since the reformation there has been an exchange particularly of ideas, although sometimes also of people, that has been enriching and important. In this way the Holy Spirit has acted to bring Christians of liberal outlook together and helped them to bear a distinctive and often very influential witness in their own localities.

We can see this at work in a number of ways but it can be explained very clearly by looking at the shared historical development that liberal churches and movements have had in Europe. In England in 1662 around 2,000 clergymen were expelled from the Established Church creating the large community known as Dissent. The largest group within Dissent was the Presbyterians who were essentially Calvinist in their doctrine. Excluded from the ancient universities they had to create their own academies for the education of their ministers. We know that in such institutions they came into contact with liberal and radical ideas from all over Europe. We know from his diary that one student in Manchester at the very end of the seventeenth century came across the writings of European theologians such as Episcopius, Socinus and Crellius which caused him to question the doctrine of the Trinity and reject rigid Calvinism. This shows the web of connection between liberal groups across Europe. Lets look briefly at these theologians.

Episcopius was the assumed name of Simon Bishop (1583-1643) who systematised the tenets of Arminianism when professor at Leiden in the early seventeenth century and went on to be one of the founders of the Remonstrant Church in the Netherlands. After spending some time in exile in France he became the Rector and Professor of Theology in the Arminian College in Amsterdam.

Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) was an Italian, a native of Sienna, who had immense influence on the development of liberal Christian views in Europe. Socinus' liberal theological views began to be expressed following the writing of 'On Christ the Saviour' (1578) which rejected the traditional doctrine of the atonement in favour of subjectionist view first put forward by Abelard. He spent a few years in Transylvania, in Kolozsvar engaging in dialogue with Francis David but moved to Poland in 1580 where he became the leader of the Minor Reformed Church, one of the most important, if short-lived, flowerings of liberal Christianity in European history. Partly under his influence the Church produced the Racovian Catechism in 1605 a landmark publication for a free and rational approach to Christianity. The Minor Reformed Church was ultimately destroyed in the Counter-Reformation but its ideals and principles survived and exile communities continued in Transylvania, East Prussia and Holland.

Samuel Crellius (1661 - 1747) was the learned leader of the Socinian Polish group in East Prussia. Educated in England and Holland he argued for tolerance between Lutherans and Calvinists. A friend of Sir Isaac Newton his scholarship was widely recognised across Europe, publishing an important text on the nature of Christ in England in 1726. His last twenty years were spent in Amsterdam where he associated closely with the Remonstrants.

Another important theological influence that led many to reject the Calvinism of their forebears and embrace liberal doctrines was Jacobus Arminius. Arminius was born in Holland in 1560 at educated at Utrecht and Marburg, later studying at Leiden, Geneva, and Basle as well as Padua and Rome. In 1603 he was appointed professor at Leiden and began to argue against the doctrines of Calvinism. He put forward the view that Divine sovereignty was compatible with a real free-will in humanity; that Jesus died for all people and not just the elect; and repudiated the doctrine of predestination.

Arminian ideas were taken up all over Europe, in Ireland they were enthusiastically followed by New Light or Non-Subscribing Presbyterians. In Scotland they found a receptive audience amongst leading academics in the eighteenth century.

We continue in the footsteps of such people who, in the period of the Enlightenment, endeavoured to shake off those elements of Protestantism that were narrow and restrictive and to marry faith with the growing strides in knowledge and understanding made by humanity, to link faith and reason together. The links of personnel and ideas between the different groups represented here today began in the early eighteenth century and were continued by others in later centuries. In some places, England, Ireland or the Netherlands for instance, separate liberal churches were founded. In others - such as Scotland, France or Germany - liberalism tended to take root within the mainstream denominations.

This is the part that the Holy Spirit has called us to play in Europe, it is in this tradition that we all stand, and I would suggest that it is manifested in a number of different ways.

The first is, I have just suggested, by bringing together faith and reason. These are the twin pillars for any mature approach to religion. Secondly and linked to this first point is an open and thoughtful approach to the Bible. In an era when Biblical fundamentalism is becoming more strong and aggressive this is a very important issue. However, liberal Christianity is also characterised, as I mentioned earlier, by a willingness to be ecumenical and co-operate with others. So the third point stems from the injunction of the Psalmist - How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity (Psalm 133 v.1) - which remains as an imperative for us today. We should actively seek unity and not be afraid of dialogue. Following on from the stress on reason comes the fourth point, the belief in the individual's responsibility for his or her own faith, what the constitution of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland calls "the sacred right of private judgment". But if we expect liberty of conscience for ourselves then we also have to be willing to extend it to others. So the fifth point is one of tolerance. In the centuries since the reformation religious toleration has been the exception rather than the rule even though an early stand was made in 1568 with the Declaration of Torda which was one of the first explicit grants of tolerance and religious freedom in Europe. But St Paul himself declared that: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians ch.3 v.17), and our faith calls us not just to protect the liberty of religion but the freedoms of all peoples to live in societies characterised by equality and a respect for human rights.

So these are some of the distinguishing marks of the work of the Holy Spirit amongst liberal Christians in our particular tradition. This takes us back to the Spirit of the first Pentecost, the breath of God coming among people and giving them the courage or the strength to take up the tasks that await them. The message too, of both Pentecost and Ezekiel, is that no matter how hopeless things might seem or how confusing they might be we can still rely on the presence of God as an invigorating and positive presence if we will allow ourselves to be touched by it.

For all that we know about the world, for all that we have been able to discover about physics and the natural environment we still have to look with wonder on creation and marvel at the source of life which is beyond our power and beyond our creation.

But the purpose of the Church is to be led by this spirit, by the breath of life, to be animated and directed by the power that lies behind all life. And the spirit goes beyond the purely churchy or the narrowly religious because we can see it at work in all forms of creativity and achievement. Christianity is ultimately a life affirming religion, we believe in life before death, and it is only right then for us to find God in all aspects of human progress. It therefore follows that everything we do should be invested with our faith and done for God.

I would like to suggest that the Holy Spirit lies behind our coming together today and is the binding element in our relationship. The Holy Spirit reminds us to be open to the new possibilities that God always provides, both as individuals and as churches. It reminds us of the need to be confident and trusting in what God supplies and through the long and interwoven history that we share gives us the possibility today of a new and exciting future.